Dec. 8, 1881 | 
NATURE 
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practised by the Kanowits and Malanau tribes in Sara-| female children, in order that their appearance may 
wak.” In consequence of this information I asked Mr, 
C. C. de Crespigny of Sarawak, a gentleman who has 
already (in 1876) published some account of the Malanaus 
in the Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great 
Britain, to forward, if possible, the instrument with 
Fic. 1.—Artificially deformed skull from Sarawak, Borneo. 
which the artificial deformation is effected; and Mr. de 
Crespigny was so obliging as to fulfil my wish and to 
write on April 8, 1881: “I am sending by this post the 
little instrument you desired me to procure for you, used 
by the Malanau women in flattening the heads of their 
correspond with their parents’ idea of beauty.”’ 
The instrument (Fig. 2) is by no means roughly made, 
but so well adapted to the purpose that one must regard 
it as the result of the exertions of many generations. I 
am sorry that Mr. de Crespigny, to whom I am so much 
indebted, did not add a note as to the way in which the 
apparatus is applied to the child’s head. I suppose that 
this is wrapped up in cushions and laid with the occiput 
on the square wooden part of the apparatus a; the 
bandage 4, made of blue cotton, then being tied round 
the forehead, the bandage c over the whole head from the 
forehead to the occiput, and the threads, fastened at the 
end of c, drawn through the holes in a, and finally 
through the square hole of a Chinese coin, behind which 
they are knotted together with some glass beads. Two 
sets of holes in the longitudinal part of the wooden in- 
strument allow the degree of pressure to be regulated. 
The apparatus is very accurately cut and polished. The 
length is 325 millimetres, length and breadth of the 
square middle part go and 60 mm. respectively, the 
length of the frontal band 315, of the sagittal band 
190 mm. 
In the mean time Prof. Flower, in his interesting essay 
(“ Nature Series”), “‘ Fashion in Deformity, as illustrated 
in the Customs of Barbarous and Civilised Races,’’ men- 
tioned, on the authority of Mr. H. B. Low, that in the 
neighbourhood of Sarawak the deformations are made 
purposely ; and I therefore do not doubt that the 
custom is a common one in that country. Perhaps a 
very asymmetrical skull in the Vrolik collection of Am- 
sterdam, from Banjermassin in South-Eastern Borneo, 
may be artificially deformed, I have not yet succeeded 
in finding another trustworthy report ‘of the same 
custom in Borneo from other tribes, but am sure that we 
shall soon hear from other quarters of the same, attention 
once being directed to the question. 
Proceeding from Borneo to the Philippine Islands in 
the north, we have ample materials from that group of 
islands. I procured, in the year 1872, in the island of 
” Fic. 2.—Instrument for deforming the heads of infants, used by the Matanaus on Burneo. 
Luzon, in the province of Bataan in Zambales, from 
graves in the forest, twelve skulls of Negritos, nearly all 
of which are more or less artificially deformed. Prof. 
Virchow is of opinion that the flattening of the occiput 
and the broadening of the hinder parts of some of the 
skulls is so strong as to make them in a high degree 
similar to certain deformed skulls from Peru. The flat- 
tening of the occiput is very obvious in some of the 
portraits of Negritos which I sketched on the spot, three 
of which are represented in Figs. 3-5. 
It has been known since the seventeenth century that 
the custom is in vogue on the Philippine Islands. M. 
Thévenot in his valuable work, “ Relations de divers 
Voyages curieux” (1664), in the part, “ Relation des isles 
Philippines faite par un Religieux qui y a demeuré 18 
ans,’’ says in his old French: “Ils auoient accoustumé 
dans quelques-vnes de ces Isles, de mettre entre-deux 
ais la teste de leurs enfans, quand ils venoient au monde, 
et la pressoient ainsi, afin qu’elle ne demeura pas ronde, 
mais qu’elle s’estendit en long ; ils luysaplatissoient aussi 
